What makes a teacher good? Is a good teacher the one that all the
students like? The one that all the parents think is nice? Is a good teacher one
whose students all get high marks? Do advanced degrees and awards make a
teacher good? Does a good teacher make sure to reach all the state standards for
his or her grade level? Yes, a good teacher is and does all these things and that
makes them just that...good.
Many people have had quite a few good teachers in their educational
lifetime. When looking through yearbooks and old photos many adults
reminisce about how they remember a teacher being so good. Ask a person why
their favorite teacher was their favorite and it is likely that a wide variety of
answers would permeate the discussions with no specifics of what made that
teacher so good. Most people just think their old teacher was “great” with no
real insight as to why. Ask that same person why their least favorite teacher was
the least favorite; the answers would be just as diverse, but much easier to define
and explain. It is fairly easy to tell what a good teacher is and what a good
teacher is not.
The content here within strives to define a much larger and complicated
subject matter than that of what makes a teacher good. This paper defines the
main attributes of a teacher who is much more than good; this paper defines the
main attributes of the expert educator.